It is Okay
by MorganLeFay33
Summary: "They never reminisce together at Downton, but that is not Elsie's decision to make."


_"Shock and disgust? My my, I think I have to hear it now."_

_She nods politely in the darkness, avoiding his eyes but squeezing his arm all the while. She'll offer sound advice, and he'll take it. She won't tell him that she knows a thing or two about what this feels like._

* * *

They never reminisce together at Downton, but that is not Elsie's decision to make.

Sarah O'Brien had always hated having to share a room. Always. Almost as much as Elsie had hated her own assigned role as an unwilling voyeur. She did not blame Sarah for her sourness, for Elsie was a perpetual, uncomfortable intruder into the routines that revealed the other housemaid's daily transformation from severe professional into fragile young woman. Just as the stiff corsets and hairpins tumbled into oblivion, so did Sarah's reserve one icy night in January.

Elsie found her at the foot of her bed, hugging her knees to her chest and crying quietly into them. Once Elsie sank down beside her, it did not take long. There were tales of passion and soft skin and warmth, of sickness and self-disgust. And there was fear. Fear of damnation, fear of weakness, fear of that monstrous, unspeakable thing lurking just beneath the surface.

Elsie traced smooth circles on her back. She asked no questions. Sarah continued anyway. Her eyes were harrowing - wide, vulnerable, bluer than she'd remembered.

"What have I done? God, what have I done."

Recalling it now, Elsie comes to see that she was never quite like Sarah. She has thought things, felt things, but she has never done things. She wonders what it might have been like, and she thinks she can understand why Sarah loathes herself so. The poor little dear.

Nonetheless, Elsie had been wise, and so, she'd remembered a time when her own older sister had seen it in her as well, and had told her the words that echoed covertly across generations from one troubled soul to another, spoken thusly:

"It is_ okay_."

Sarah raised her eyes, her reddened cheeks streaked with tears and her lips parted in disbelief. For Elsie had uttered it slowly, determinedly, making it known that she was indeed able to give the pardon that Sarah so strongly ached for.

"It…is?"

* * *

Elsie breaks decades of silence one balmy afternoon in May, when brilliant flowers are bursting from the earth and dangling with a ribbon from Sarah's hands, crossed ever so discreetly behind her back. Violets. And gypsy flowers. Elsie has only planned to observe it, as she has twice before over the years.

They stand in a crowd, watching the musicians together - musicians so youthful and full of glimmer that no one minds the heat of the sun and the occasional smarting of crushed toes. She can understand the draw of the violinist, Elsie thinks, with her fae-like movements and infectious grin. She chuckles when she finally knows the reason behind the lady's maid's annual enthusiasm for the fair.

Thomas bumps into her on his way toward Sarah, carelessly hitting Elsie's shoulder with his own. He has not seen her, and so he does not know she can hear the beginning of his harsh whisper into the other woman's ear:

"_Don't embarrass yourself…_"

Elsie can't make out the rest, but the footman's triumphant, arrogant exit tells her enough. As he disappears once again, the housekeeper watches Sarah's expression turn from impenetrable to bitter. One by one, the flowers float down from her hand like feathers from a beaten goose pillow.

"Sarah…"

She has, perhaps impudently, grasped the younger woman's hand in reassurance.

"It is okay."

The lady's maid yanks her arm away and with alarming ferocity throws the small bouquet downward. She violently grinds it into the dust with her heel, wiping her brow and sniffling before turning to leave.

"Get out of my way."

* * *

Elsie has known this for a long while, but it hasn't been her place to discuss it. Now she has no other choice, for the innocuous yet incriminating photographs have dropped out of the young lady's arms and are scattered across the floor. The housekeeper averts her gaze, but it is too late. She's seen the kisses and the caresses, captured on glorious summer days that are no more: a foolish and yet admirable decision.

Edith has been crying, and Elsie wrings her hands together in concern, unsure of what she is allowed to say. She didn't realize that someone would be in here at this time of day.

Her hazel eyes are wide, a surprisingly familiar shade of vulnerable blue.

"Mrs. Hughes, I can explain," she insists.

When Edith realizes that she cannot, her face falls, and Elsie steps forward to hug her. A hug seems to be an appropriately inappropriate gesture at the moment. The poor lass has had her darling wee heart broken, after all.

"Have I…Do you think me…" she asks between sobs, visibly ashamed.

Burying her sighs in the young woman's red-gold hair, the housekeeper stops herself from speaking. Far too many years have passed now, and she accepts that there is someone here better equipped for this task.

"Wait here."

Minutes later, she manages to pull a grumbling Sarah O'Brien into Edith's room. Elsie gestures toward the bittersweet collage of photographs on the rug, unable to suppress a small smile at the sight of the lady's maid's shocked but subtle eyebrow raise.

Poised to return downstairs, Elsie murmurs into Sarah's ear.

"You know what to tell her."


End file.
